


The Memories of a Memory

by orphan_account



Series: The Memories of a Memory [1]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:19:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey searched for the Jedi Master Skywalker and ended up finding a father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Memories of a Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of the Rey Skywalker conspiracy and, more specifically, my friend Peyton's Wedge/Luke shitposting on their blog teenagevictorysong. 
> 
> Enjoy.

For a moment Rey felt that this exact scenario had occurred a thousand times before, but the dejavu left as quick as it came. Luke Skywalker returned from his tiny kitchen with two cups of tea and set one mug down on the table in front of her. His mechanical hand glinted in the low light. Outside, the ocean turned inside out against the tide. Rey cupped the mug in her hands and focused on the heat diffusing through her palms.

Skywalker fidgeted, looked out the window, held his tea without drinking it. R2-D2, rusted with its paint chipping off, remained silent, looking back and forth between its master and the girl.

 

“Thanks for the tea,” Rey muttered lamely.

 

“You’re welcome.” Skywalker finally turned to her. He was frail without his cloak, but made up for it in his presence. Rey couldn’t keep eye contact with him and settled her gaze on his tea.

 

“Everyone thinks you’re dead,” she said. “Except for Han and General Organa.”

 

He grinned wryly. “Of course.”

 

She lifted her head. “And me.”

 

“You used the Force.”

 

Rey shook her head. “My friend, Finn, he’s better at that than I am.”

 

“But you found me,” Skywalker said.

 

“I was the only one who went to look for you.”

 

“There’s no such thing as luck or chance.” Skywalker leaned back in his seat. “Not in the Force.”

 

“I can’t use it,” Rey insisted. “I’m just—I’m only good with a blaster. Look—” She set her mug down and got to the point. “There’s people dying. There’s a new order. They have this machine—it’s worse than the Death Star ever could have been. We need you.”

 

“My time has passed,” Skywalker said.

 

Rey smacked the rickety table. Artoo whirred in annoyance. “They tortured my friend! Chewbacca died!”

 

Skywalker’s eyes widened. “Please, Rey—”

 

Something in the way he said her name made Rey’s stomach drop. Her determination fled and was replaced with panic. “You’re our only hope! You saved everyone once, you can do it again.”

 

He scowled.  “My father saved us. It was never me. I was an idiot.”

 

“No one thinks that! You’re a hero.”

 

“I failed. I failed my teachers, I failed my father, I failed Leia, and I…” Skywalker’s jaw clenched.  “I failed you, Rey.”

 

“Me?” She frowned. “What—”

 

“Look inside.” He leaned over the table and clasped her shaking hands in his. “Feel the Force, Rey.”

 

She stared at him, then shut her eyes and swallowed. Her heart hammered in her chest. The waves crashed onto the shore outside. Skywalker squeezed her hands. Suddenly, an invisible current unleashed itself in her mind. She could feel it all around her, a heavy energy pressing in from every side. It was too much. She gasped, her eyes flying open.

 

“Rey, it’s alright.” Skywalker cupped her cheek. “Look at me.”

 

His palm was warm and dry. “Was that you?” Rey asked.

 

“I might have helped.”

 

She glanced at the window. “I think I might pass out.”

 

“Breathe. Look at me.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Look with the Force,” Skywalker directed. His thumb brushed her cheekbone. “Go on.”

 

She hesitated.

 

“I’m here,” he promised.

 

Rey inhaled and closed her eyes once more. She counted her breaths, listened to the sea, and focused on Skywalker’s hand against her cheek. He smelled familiar. She’d met him before. His presence in the Force was overwhelming, bright and soft and comforting. Her breathing evened out as she reached toward him from some metaphysical plane.

 

Her head exploded in stars upon contact. She shrieked and tore away from him. Skywalker rounded the table and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Steady, now.” He turned to the droid. “Artoo, get her some water!”

 

Rey dropped her head into her hands, quivering as memories of the Force—buried by decades of absence and the sands of Jakku—washed over her. She sat in the cockpit of a cargo ship sitting on someone’s knee, giggling, with Luke’s Force beside her. She cried over a skinned elbow, and Luke made a flower twirl midair in front of her eyes. She woke up from a nightmare and Luke held her against his chest, driving out her dream with the golden caress of the Force.

 

She stood and flung her arms around Luke’s neck and buried her nose in his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “You remember,” he said.

 

“Of course I do.” Rey pulled back and wiped her eyes, laughing with relief. “You’re my father.”

 

His eyes softened and he pulled her back in for another hug. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

 

“What happened?” she asked.

 

Artoo returned with the water. Rey smiled and downed it all in one drink. Luke lead her outside to the beach, where they sat side-by-side in the sand.

 

“Leia carried you,” Luke said, and Rey shuttered her questions for another time, “but I was married to a man named Wedge Antilles, and he was your biological father.”

 

“He was a pilot,” Rey said, thinking of the memory in the cargo ship.

 

Luke nodded. “The best. We were part of the same squadron… After the Alliance was established, I had to restore the Jedi. He went with me.”

 

Rey laid back against the sand. “What was he like?”

 

Luke snorted. “He was too smart for his own good. Goal-oriented. Obsessed with work. A lot like me, I guess, except he knew when to draw the line. Took care of me.”

 

“He had dark hair,” Rey said, trying to remember. “He made breakfast.”

 

“You look just like him.” Luke brushed an errant strand of hair away from her eyes. “I haven’t seen his face in twenty years.”

 

“They were pancakes,” she continued. “I ate them with strawberries. Like you.”

 

Luke smiled silently.

 

“We had a house on the ocean. It was Corellia. Every morning we would go out before the tide and pick up sea shells.” Rey blinked away tears. “I called him Pop.” Her head spun with the vertigo of recollection, the sunny scorch of the Force, and the voices she heard years ago as a child. “Dad,” she moaned, and Luke gathered her in his arms, his heartbeat a soothing balm in the Force.

 

“I was busy struggling to build a Jedi temple,” he said. “Your father had a meeting. He was a military general. It wasn’t serious, and you wanted to visit Leia—“

 

“She never told me. She never said we were related.”

 

“We thought you died,” Luke said. He paused. Rey felt his chest heave and immediately regretted her outburst. “You crashed on Jakku, in the desert. The entire ship caught on fire. Wedge—there was nothing left of his body, there was nothing left in the Force. I couldn’t feel you, either. I assumed the worst.”

 

Rey narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t your fault.”

 

Luke scowled. “Someone sabotaged the ship back home. Your father was the best pilot in the rebellion, he couldn’t have made such an easy mistake.”

 

“You don’t know that!”

 

He shook his head. “There was a disturbance in the Force. The dark was growing. I knew it was because of me. As long as I was around, there’d only be animosity. I killed my family.”

 

“No, you didn’t!” Rey scrambled up onto her feet. “I’m here! Leia is still here. She’s been waiting all these years. She can still feel you.”

 

Luke’s face remained vacant. “It’s best if I stay away.”

 

“You’re just giving up?” Rey crossed her arms and turned to the ocean. “You’re a coward.”

 

“I’ll teach you all I know.”

 

“I don’t want a Jedi,” she snapped. “I want my father.”

 

“I couldn’t even face her again.” Luke covered his eyes with his hands.

 

“I’ll be there.” Rey set her hand on his back. “She won’t be angry. I know it.”

 

Luke sighed. He looked back up. “I want to train you before we leave.”

 

Rey beamed. “Really?”

 

He nodded and swept her legs out from under her with his arm. She landed in the sand with a grunt. “First lesson: always be alert.”

 

“Hey!” Rey lifted her head and tossed a fistful of sand toward him.

 

Luke laughed and brushed it off of his shirt. Rey paused, grinning. He smiled back at her. It was okay.


End file.
